Students Remain Divided on Strike Methods

In the wake of the student hunger strike, students have expressed mixed opinions about the methods employed by the campus activists.

Supporters of the ten-day strike, which brought attention to long-standing debates between activists and administrators to the, point to concessions from the administration on such issues as funding for the Core Curriculum’s major cultures requirement and ethnic studies programs as evidence of the efficacy of the strikers’ strategy. But other students said the strikers failed to reach out to build consensus among the student body or to reach out to them on a personal level.

“I don’t think it reached a very wide audience,” May Tun, Continuing Education ’08 and an employee of the School of Public Health, said. “People aren’t talking about it.”

Calvin Sun, Asian American Alliance president and Columbia College senior class vice president, said that many students he spoke to who were not involved in the strike expressed fatigue after a semester marked by the controversial visit of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and high profile bias incidents. “The main feeling I got from them was annoyance, and also curiosity,” Sun said.

Kurstin Nelms, CC ’09, said that the regularity of protests at Columbia diminished the strike’s impact. “At Columbia, there are protests and strikes so you’re almost immune to it,” Nelms said.

Supporters of the strike claim that the effort started a conversation that has reached a wide range of students. “It got people talking,” Desiree Carver-Thomas, CC ’09 and a strike negotiator, said, pointing to the strike’s prominent place on the agenda of Tuesday night’s General Studies Student Council town hall. “I think that’s one of the huge successes.”

Niko Cunningham, GSSC president, said he felt that the general student body’s opinion of the strike was difficult to gauge given that the voices heard in the debate were largely polarized to those on either end of the spectrum. “If you read the comments on Bwog, it looks like 95 percent of the campus is anti-strike,” Cunningham said. “It’s actually that 95 percent of the campus is apathetic, but 99 percent of Bwog posters are anti-strike.”

Some students who initially did not support the strike said they were eventually swayed by the strikers’ dedication. “I at first was kind of irritated at it, but then my view changed after I talked to some of my friends who were really involved,” Ruth Lerdahl, CC ’08, said.

But like many students, Lerdahl said she disagreed with the strikers’ methods. “It’s not the method I would use if I cared about something as much as these people cared about these issues,” she said.

“I think a hunger strike like that should always be a last resort, and I’m not sure they went through all of the channels they could have,” Elizabeth Strauss, SEAS ’08 and Engineering Student Council president, said. Though the other three student councils drafted statements in support of the strikers, the ESC released a critical statement, condemning the strikers for having “taken our community hostage in a show of sensationalism.” CCSC released a statement in support of the strikers, but did not take a position on the strike itself.

Sun said he felt the administration and student council members deserved some blame for the feeling of disconnect that pushed students to take drastic measures to resolve their concerns. “Even though there might have been other courses of action the strikers could have taken, the people who knew about those avenues did not make that information available to them,” he said.

Cunningham also pointed to past councils as part of the reason that the strikers’ demands, many of which echoed those of previous protests, had not been met under regular University procedures. “The student councils have failed the students,” he said. “The student councils in prior years have not followed through in making sure that these victories, these promises are fulfilled.” His and other current councils, he said, intend to make fulfilling promises a priority.

Strauss expressed concern that the hunger strike had prevented students from participating fully in the decision-making process. “I think there was no debate, and that that has set a tone I’m concerned about,” she said. “To have a situation like this that’s so visible that students didn’t have a chance to speak on—I think that’s left a lot of people feeling like they don’t have as much of a voice.”

“I think it’s always difficult to reach out to groups that are skeptical, but we [the pro-strike coalition] tried really hard to reach out to everyone and be really approachable,” Carver-Thomas said.

Some also fear the precedent for future protests set by the hunger strike. “My reaction to it is, ‘I guess you have to do something crazy to get these changes made,’ which isn’t really all that great an idea,” Lerdahl said.

“Unfortunately, it implies that protests are the fastest way to get things done at the University,” Sun said. “But from a student council perspective, it’s not the only way.”
But Sun did say that he thinks that the strike has had a positive effect on student involvement on campus. “Everyone should see that students have a lot of power at Columbia,” he said.

Mary Kohlmann can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.